


By Definition Undefined

by romanticalgirl



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can a container contain itself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Definition Undefined

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/)**inlovewithnight** for the beta.
> 
> Originally posted 12-16-07

He tries not to call Jason when Scotty’s there, unwilling to let anyone else see what he’s relatively certain is the writing on the wall. Rationally he knows that Jason’s busy, that he’s helping people, that he’s on a mission from God, literally, or at least the Bishop. But it doesn’t change the fact that Kevin’s alone and he’s lonely and his phone never rings.

The problem is that Scotty’s too perceptive or maybe he just knows Kevin too well. Either way he keeps leaving things for Kevin – food or movies or books with little notes that he’d thought Kevin would like them, or they made him think of Kevin. He’s questioning his wisdom and his motives for having Scotty there, but every day that the phone doesn’t ring, it’s easier and easier to let him stay, to forget why he shouldn’t.

He tries to give himself better motives for it. Tries to pretend that he’s hoping Jason will see the kind of guy he really is beyond the shallowness and the petty bitchery that is his stock in trade. He’s ready with the argument that he can’t let Scotty live in his car, that he’s just helping him out until he gets back on his feet. Of course, everyone assumes Scotty won’t be getting back on his feet so much as back in Kevin’s bed. No one asks, because they just assume they know the reason. Kevin wishes that he knew for sure that they were wrong.

Which brings him to Saul.

Save for when he came out, Saul’s been more of a father to him than William ever was in a lot of respects. Saul embraced the same things that Kevin liked growing up, so they went to museums and plays, talked about books and took trips to places that held no appeal to Tommy and William and Justin. It was part of why Kevin’s coming out was so hard. The person he’d thought he could count on was Saul, and instead Saul shut himself off from Kevin, distanced himself, and so all there was left was a feeling that by being himself he’d let his father down and, by being honest, he’d let Saul down.

He could make sense of things if Saul is gay. He could understand that Saul was afraid to tell a kid going through something – a kid well-known as the worst secret keeper in a family of really, _really_ bad secret keepers – that he wasn’t alone, that he understood. He could understand if Saul was afraid that it would solidify the bond that the two of them had to an extent that William was shut out of Kevin’s life forever, and he knows that that’s something neither he nor Saul would have wanted, could have lived with.

Of course, knowing that would make him want to look back at his 18 year-old self and wish he could change things; wish he could make himself understand, could mitigate some of the self-pity and self-loathing, could tell him that he’d be a better man in 15 years than he was then, than he ever thought he could be.

Not that Saul had an obligation. Kevin tries to remind himself of that. He tries to remember what it felt like to have Kitty’s voice ring out around the breakfast table, talking about Danny McCulloch and the rumors she’d heard and then looking at Kevin and just stopping. She didn’t need to say anything, since everyone at the table had figured out what she meant, what was implied, but she’d still managed to blurt out a “My God, Kevin. Are you _gay_?” loud enough that Nora had heard her in the kitchen.

If for no other reason than that, Saul doesn’t owe Kevin any solidarity in sexuality. But by the same token, Kevin knows the fear and the self-doubt and the self-hatred that can go with all the other feelings that churn around inside you. Kevin had known for a while what he was, and yet hearing the words, _saying_ the words had been harder than anything else he’s ever had to do.

Kevin’s good at self-analysis. He can present the evidence of his nervous tells and tics, lay out what’s wrong with him a brief he’s prepared for court. He has a litany of his sins and their consequences, can tell you all the things he’s ruined and spoiled and destroyed in thoughtless words and deliberate deeds and all the things he thinks about himself and who he is and what kind of man that makes him. In a lot of ways, finding out that his father cheated on his mother was a balm to Kevin, an excuse for his own perfidy, his own inabilities. It was nice, for a little while, to lay the blame at someone else’s feet. It was nice, Kevin has to admit, to know that maybe some of the things he thought about his father, about his lack of support weren’t so far off the mark.

The problem with self-analysis though is that it’s worthless if you don’t do anything to change the way you are. If you just hold on to the excuses and the lies and let them become your truths, let them define who you are. Kevin hasn’t figured out how not to do that, how not to cling to his own machinations of destruction. He wonders if that’s what Jason sees in him – the sinner he can redeem – or what Saul sees – the person that, despite everything they have in common, is the one person he doesn’t want to become. Kevin doesn’t know what he sees when he looks in the mirror, what reflections and refractions really look back at him, since he always sees through his own eyes, bitter and vicious but ultimately forgiving, assuring him he can’t do any better because he is who he is.

Which goes back to why Scotty’s here, curled up on the couch watching a movie Kevin has no desire to see, so he’s standing in the doorway of his bedroom watching Scotty instead. Scotty knows what Kevin is, how he is, but he’s here anyway, not asking him to change. Kevin knows Scotty wants him, and he can’t figure out why, because he _does_ know all those things, knows that Kevin will falter and fail him, knows that a man who cheats on a minister isn’t going to hold back from cheating on a sous chef.

But that’s why Kevin wants Scotty there. Scotty knows how he is and comes back for more, so Kevin can’t help but think either Scotty’s a masochist or maybe, just maybe, Kevin is someone worth knowing, worth risking, worth wanting, worth coming back to.  



End file.
